New line of bathrooms to a 4 story building - costs and suggestions

There are a huge variety of different types of plumbers out there. We bid out the work to three different plumbers, all of whom came in at about the same price. One was great for small jobs, one was a great generalist/neighborhood type plumber, and the third specialized in sewer/waste line/subcontracting to other plumbers. We ended up going with the latter because this is the type of work they do day in and day out — they’ve done a zillion of these installations.

cate

in Renovation 5 years and 4 months ago

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nintzk86 | 5 years and 4 months ago

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I am evaluating adding a new line of bathrooms to a 4 story (5 including basement) 4 apartment building. Currently each floor has 1 bathroom, but there is a small room (~10″x7″) in the same location on each floor that would be ideal for a new line of bathrooms. There are no waterlines, drains, etc. in the rooms so entirely new water risers, waste stack, and plumbing vent will be needed. The rooms have windows so an exhaust vent is not needed.

(1) Currently the apartments are rented and I am looking to minimize headache for tenants. Is it possible to initially put in the waste stack, water risers and vent pipe without immediately creating a full functioning bathroom on each floor. The individual bathrooms would then be done at some later more convenient time (i.e., when a tenant moves out or if we come to an agreement on adding the new bathroom). Are there any rules that prevent laying the groundwork for new bathrooms without a set date for completing the bathrooms? How would the DOB view this?

(2) Any idea on the costs for just (1) architectural drawings, (2) new wa ste stack (tapped into basement and going through roof), new water risers, and new plumbing vent pipe (again through the roof). Again, this would just be for the risers. There would be no connections to fixtures yet. If I had to guess: architectural drawings $5-10K and plumbing work $25K-$30K. Does that sound right? Is there any major cost I am missing? I realize there will be substantially more costs when putting in each bathroom after the risers are added.

(3) Any thoughts on how long to complete this work? The run for the risers is relatively straight.

Thanks!

lkrshacmzcy | 5 years and 4 months ago

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That is a good range for the drawings; the main company I use for drawings is normally between 8,000 and 12,000 but they are on the upper end.
The Plumbing Work is very ambiguous since you are essentially building a bathroom but the drawings are going to help with that as they will follow the correct code laws too.
Same as the above.
The only cost I see you missing is the Plumbing Permit but that is relatively standard

cate | 5 years and 4 months ago

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We replaced our main vent and waste stack from the cellar to the roof in a three story plus cellar house and if memory serves it was done in a day or two with a plumbing team of three. They connected the stack to three waste lines (a kitchen and two bathrooms). Our roofer handled the skylight at the top.

hkapstein | 5 years and 4 months ago

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You could hire a mechanical engineer to design the stack and file it with DOB. I could probably get this done for around 2-3k, but I could see paying up to 5k. With drawings in hand, you can bid the job out. Now here’s the rub. If you call a plumber who is easy to find, you will probably overpay for this work by a lot. I’m not sure I want to get into it further here, you’ll either figure it out or you won’t. You can probably plumb an entire brownstone for around 40-50k, so 25-30k to run a stack is much more than I think is necessary. You also need to price in a little for carpentry work to repair walls and roofing work to deal with the vent penetration, and maybe a little more expediting or other fees. I’d consider talking to some smaller GCs about this project as they may understand how to get the right price on the plumbing and you can offer future jobs doing the bathrooms if they help you out.